Burger King Burger Buck rip off: ‘Caveat emptor’

Editor, Manteca Bulletin,Did you know that Burger King no longer accepts Burger Bucks for food purchases at their restaurants? Sorry you paid for them we just don’t accept them.

I used valuable minutes of my lunch break to wait in line for a hamburger meal. As I readied my burger bucks to pay, the cashier recoiled in confusion. I was told by the window worker and the shift manager that the burger buck was really a coupon (even though the back says gift certificate on it and I paid for them with US currency) and that they no longer accept them. I stuck my head out the window to make sure that I was at BK and reread my burger buck to see if it had an expiration date. (Which I was and it doesn’t) I asked the shift manager who I could talk to at BK to resolve this and he referred me to the back of the BK buck. There was no contact information on the back. Both looked at me anticipating that I would pay for the meal. I’m not about to pay twice for anything so I told them to keep it and drove away.

The next day I called BK headquarters in Florida and spoke to Greg in customer relations who informed me that I could mail my bucks to them and they would send me a card for that amount. His final instruction was I had to be patient because it would take a while to get my card. Wait for my lunch, wait for my refund, wait in line again. Well I’m thinking to myself how many people will just let Burger King keep their few dollars instead of getting involved in this snake dance. It’s just like the gift cards marketing strategy, they hope you will buy them and know a certain percent will never use them. I can see it now at a BK HQ brain storming session, (strategy number 1, let me see, if we tell everyone their gift certificates are no good but you can mail them in for a refund a good portion of them won’t bother to try and get their money back. So there is no effort on our part and we get to keep the money. Strategy number 2, we don’t say anything when they drive up we just tell them it’s no good. They will pull money out of their pocket to pay. Here’s the beauty of it all, we in a sense collect twice for one meal. High fives all around for this marketing genius).

On the surface they did their part but in the end they get our money. What a marketing scheme. Why am I mad? I’m mad because I was hungry, on limited time with enough BK money and the only thing they could tell me was my BK BUCK was no good.